"There is enough material now in the public domain, including internal memos of senior Facebook management, to substantiate the bias." Derek O`Brien wrote.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress are all set to battle it out in the 2021 assembly elections, TMC leader Derek O`Brien wrote a letter to Facebook alleging bias against his party.
"With the election in the Indian state of West Bengal just months away, your companies recent blocking of Facebook pages and accounts in Bengal also points to the link between Facebook and BJP," DerekO`Brien wrote in the letter dated August 31.
"There is enough material now in the public domain, including internal memos of senior Facebook management, to substantiate the bias."
"We, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), India`s second-largest opposition party, have had serious concerns about Facebook`s role during the 2014 and 2019 general elections in India," he added.
With the 2021 elections right around the corner, the TMC is looking to maintain its stronghold in Bengal. If the party win the next assembly election, it would be TMC's third consecutive win in the state.
On Tuesday, Prasad in a 3-page letter to Zuckerberg complained about bias of its top management against the `right of centre`.
Prasad wrote to Zuckerberg after media reports stoked a controversy on the India team of the social media giant's "political predisposition".
In a strongly worded letter, the minister detailed instances of bias by Facebook India against BJP and the right-wing in general. "As a transnational digital platform, Facebook must not only be fair but also visibly seen to be so, to users of diverse beliefs and ideologies.
The Minister also raised his concern about the hiring of third-party fact-checkers on the social media platform. "A major issue with Facebook is the outsourcing of fact-checking to third-party fact-checker. How can Facebook absolve itself of its responsibility to protect users from misinformation and instead out-source this to shady organizations with no credibility, " Prasad wrote.
"We have seen in India that right from the assessors for on-boarding fact-checkers to the fact-checkers themselves, harbour publicly expressed political biases. Regularly vigilant volunteers on social media have to fact-check the fact-checkers! Even after on-boarding many fact-checkers, lot of misinformation related to COVID-19 and its aftermath went un-checked," the minister added.
(With IANS inputs)
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